Gift card

Ever since July, Cason has been obsessed with rocks, or yocks as he calls them. It all started in Iowa because the grandparents all had rocks outside their houses and he played with them anytime we were outside. So when we returned to Texas, we were on the lookout for cool rocks he could play with. Kelly picked up a bag of polished stones at an airport and brought them home for Cason. Whenever we were walking through a parking lot, Cason would stop and pick up any rocks he saw and bring them home to add to his collection. Grandma and Grandpa G. even sent these cool magnetic rocks a few weeks ago. The rocks were Cason's favorite thing and he was always wanting to "play yocks".



As Bryce has gotten more mobile and his hand to mouth coordination has improved, the rocks started to make me more nervous. A few nights ago, I left the room for about 30 seconds and when I returned, Cason had lined up all of his rocks on the walker tray right in front of Bryce. I told Kelly that the rocks had to disappear that night. After Cason went to bed, I gathered up all of the rocks and stored them away safely for when both boys are older. I felt really bad about it but I just couldn't risk Bryce choking on them. The next morning, Cason immediately started looking for his yocks. I helped him look for awhile and then told him that the yocks had to go bye-bye. Over the past few days, he has mentioned the yocks several times but overall has taken it pretty well.

We wanted to replace the rocks with something but we didn't know what. The other day, I remembered that I still had a gift card that Aunt Alissa and Uncle Dave had given Cason for his birthday. So I asked Cason if he would like to take his gift card and pick out a new toy. Of course he said yes. So today we finally had time and we headed here:



Excitedly holding his gift card.



So many choices!







We helped Cason narrow it down to these two classics:



And the winner is the Mr. Potato Head Silly Suitcase, or "Tato Head" as Cason calls him!



He had a little money left on his gift card so we let him pick out some candy. He has never gotten candy from the checkout aisle before so I hope I didn't just open Pandora's Box. I let him choose between Skittles and M&M's and he chose M&M's.



Paying with his gift card.



Thank you Aunt Alissa, Uncle Dave, and Tate!



He insisted on putting it in the trunk, even though the trunk was full of mulch.



Checking it out at home.



His first creation.



This was a really fun experience for all of us. I think I have picked out all of his toys before, except for gifts from relatives (and even a lot of those I picked out). Cason was so excited just at the idea of going to Target to pick out a new toy and we could tell by the smile on his face he really enjoyed it. I didn't even feel like a dork taking pictures in Target, I normally would have.

And just as a side note, I took all of these pictures with my sweet new camera. I bought this one to replace my current camera (which I'm trying to sell on craigslist). This is much smaller and it actually takes much better pictures, even in low light. I didn't even have to run these photos through Noise Ninja. I'm lobbying for a DSLR camera for Christmas but this one will be great to keep in the diaper bag when I don't want to lug around a big camera. No, I didn't pick it just because it's orange. I read tons of reviews, narrowed it down to this one and a Sony. Then we went to Best Buy to play with them and this was the clear winner. It's just a bonus that it came in orange.